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reckoning up the total pay due to them, all to their own advantage, and having arrived at a most exorbitant result, submitted that this was the sum they should demand from the Carthaginians. The whole force remembered the promises the generals had made to them in critical situations, and had great hopes and indeed quite expected that the government would thus correct in their favour the account of the sum they had earned. 67. The consequence was that when the total force was assembled at Sicca, and when Hanno, who was then commander-in-chief in Africa, came there and not only said that it was impossible to meet their claims and fulfil their hopes, but on the contrary tried by dwelling on the present heavy taxation and general distress of Carthage to induce them to renounce some of their stipulated wage, it produced at once a spirit of dissension and sedition, and the soldiers began to hold constant meetings, sometimes of particular nations and sometimes general. As they were neither all of the same nationality nor spoke the same language, the camp was full of confusion and tumult and what is known as τύρβη or turbulence. For the Carthaginian practice of employing hired troops of various nationalities is indeed well calculated to prevent them from combining rapidly in acts of insubordination or disrespect to their officers, but in cases of an outburst of anger or of slanderous rumours or disaffection it is most prejudicial to all efforts to convey the truth to them, to calm their passions, or to show the ignorant their error. Indeed, such forces, when once their anger is aroused against anyone, or slander spreads among them, are not content with mere human wickedness, but end by becoming like